Idiom
give someone grey hair
Meaning
To give someone great frustration, confusion, or anxiousness.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“My kids give me grey hair when they play near the road.”
“This broken computer gives me grey hair every time I try to work.”
“The constant delays in this project are really starting to give me grey hair.”
“Learning to navigate the city's complicated new tax system is enough to give anyone grey hair.”
“Waiting for the results of my medical tests for three weeks is truly giving me grey hair.”
“Trying to plan a wedding for two hundred guests on a tiny budget is giving the young couple grey hair.”
“Managing a team of disorganized interns during the busy season will surely give me grey hair before the year is out.”
Examples
simple
“My kids give me grey hair when they play near the road.”
“This broken computer gives me grey hair every time I try to work.”
contextual
“The constant delays in this project are really starting to give me grey hair.”
“Learning to navigate the city's complicated new tax system is enough to give anyone grey hair.”
“Waiting for the results of my medical tests for three weeks is truly giving me grey hair.”
“Trying to plan a wedding for two hundred guests on a tiny budget is giving the young couple grey hair.”
complex
“Managing a team of disorganized interns during the busy season will surely give me grey hair before the year is out.”
Origin
The phrase is rooted in the folk belief that extreme stress accelerates the loss of hair pigment. This perceived link between anxiety and biology remained without empirical evidence until January 2020, when a study published in the journal Nature demonstrated that acute stress could indeed induce greying in mice. The idiom persists as a figurative attribution of one's follicular decline to the conduct of others.
Key words
Related idioms
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